Pomodori e Vino is a group of nine who, on March 28th, 2010 began a challenge to cook every recipe in Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking"
We are documenting our results here with a post every day.
Check in often.

About Beth

Beth, along with her husband, Mike, is co-owner of two Italian Deli/Markets in St. Louis - Viviano’s Festa Italiano. When not creating yummy new menu items for the deli, she’s the pediatric research lab supervisor at Washington University School of Medicine.
Read more out about Viviano’s Festa Italiano.

About Irene

Irene loves to think, read and dream about food. She enjoys cooking & eating in general. Although she demures about her talents, Irene has a finely-tuned palate that her friends envy. She bakes on occasion. The rest of the time she's creating memories with her family and friends. . . or she's learning a new needlecraft technique.

About Deborah

Deborah is a wife, mother, grandmother, traveler, bootlegger, and a very poor speller!
As Victor Hazan so eloquently puts it, Deborah has chosen Umbria to be the home of her soul. When she can’t be there in body, she spends her free time cooking & reading about Italy. She blogs mostly about food and about trips – past and future –
here: Old Shoes New Trip.

About Doug

Doug lives in Eastern Ontario in a farmhouse built in 1903. He is a retired teacher with four adult children, a wife, a son-in-law, two Irish step-grandchildren and one grandson who he is lucky to hang with a lot. He has way too many books. Doug also blogs at To Slow Time Down.

About Cindy

Cindy lives in Eagle River, Alaska where her freezer is always full of salmon, halibut & shrimp. Cindy participates in several regular cooking challenges. You can read more about her cooking and life in the last frontier on her blog, Baked Alaska.

About Sandi

Sandi is a true Southerner, but a traveler & Italian cook at heart. She lives in Alabama and knows more about fried green tomatoes than fricassees. Her family owned the WhistleStop Café for many years. Sandi also blogs at Whistlestop Cafe Cooking.

About Jan

Jan, a serious home cook, has owned “Essentials” since 1992. She is passionate about all things Italian, especially the cuisine & the language. Jan blogs about her travels (next trip Italy May/June of 2010) at: Keep your Feet in the Street.

About Jerry

Jerry is a food obsessed Canadian. He learned to love Italian food as a child while eating the meals prepared by his Napolitano uncle. He learned to cook Italian foods by watching his uncle cook these feasts for the family. This love of Italian food has been honed through serious personal experimentation in eating and cooking. Willing to try most anything once, Jerry isn't so sure about tripe! Jerry also blogs at Jerry's Thoughts, Musings, and Rants!

About Palma

Palma is a Marriage & Family Therapist in Palm Desert, CA. She’s an Italian-American with a passion for cooking, entertaining, & travel to Italy. She’s always planning her next culinary adventure to Italia on her blog, Palmabella's Passions

Focaccia (with onions, Genoese style)

I really love focaccia and Marcella’s recipe in Essentials has been my “go to” choice for years. She gives us a few variations and I’ve done some others on my own but this is the classic, onion focaccia of Genoa.

First you proof the yeast for about 10 minutes:

I used my mixer with a dough hook for the initial mixing of flour, yeast, olive oil, salt and water.

And finished with the gratifying kneading by hand.

The dough is left to rise--first in a ball on the baking sheet and then pressed into the rectangle shape of the pan.

Because I don’t have the 18 by 14 inch pan, I divided it into a large and small ball for two pans.

Before you put the focaccia into the oven you make dimples all over the dough using your fingers. (I have longish nails so I use my knuckles.) Then a mixture of olive oil, water and salt is brushed on, pooling into the dimples.

The onion topping is simply olive oil and onions briefly sautéed.

For the small pan, I just used a bit of fresh rosemary.

They’re baked in a hot oven and best eaten when still warm. I had to give some away to my neighbors so I didn’t eat the whole pan of it myself.

Comments (3)

Marcella Hazan:

We once spent a summer in a little town near Genova called Sori, and every morning the only decision we had to make was whether we'd go get the focaccia con le cipolle or the farinata. It was a tough decision, but the focaccia came out the winner a little more frequently. Did you know that in Venice focaccia is a cake?

"Then a mixture of olive oil, water and salt is brushed on, pooling into the dimples". I think this is the best sentence ever!! I love focaccia and both of yours with onions and then the rosemary must have tasted amazing! Wish you were my neighbor!!!

I love Marcella's focaccia recipe! It has the most beautiful texture. I usually make the plain one with just a bit of rosemary or coarse salt. And you didn't mention it but I love her kneading technique where you kind of smack the dough on the counter for 10 minutes or so. Great for getting rid of the day's frustrations.